The widespread use of motor vehicles for both personal and work related activity places millions of vehicles on roads each day with their operation being largely unmonitored. Unmonitored vehicle operation can lead to a variety of issues and problems including, for example, abusive use of the vehicle and related driving-safety issues.
One specific example application is the use of a parent's vehicle by a teenage child. Teenagers hold jobs after school, attend college classes during the high school day, take themselves to after-school events, and assist the family with errands. Oftentimes the only practicable transportation available to and from these tasks is driving their parent's automobile, as many parents of young adults are unavailable and cannot drive the teen themselves. When young adults drive irresponsibly, they place themselves and others at risk. In addition to safety concerns, the high accident rates associated with inexperienced drivers causes higher insurance rates as a whole for the parents of teenage drivers.
Another problem is the inability of an employer at companies that use a fleet of vehicles (e.g., at a bus company or a trucking operation) to monitor the manner in which employees are operating their assigned vehicles. An employer attempts to prevent misuse or abuse of vehicles in order to keep the vehicles in good condition, thereby reducing maintenance costs and equipment down time. Additionally, when an operator is abusing a vehicle they are also likely to be driving dangerously. Reducing dangerous driving reduces the number of accidents and all of the costs associated with accidents. Currently, the only information available to employers comes from an individual's official driving record, personal observations or tips from other drivers on the road. It is therefore difficult for an employer to effectively monitor misuse of a vehicle by their employees.
Rented or leased vehicles receive an inordinate amount of intentional abuse from drivers. Rental agencies currently have no way of knowing which drivers abuse their vehicles. Therefore, the costs associated with vehicles that have been treated harshly are necessarily dispersed to all consumers. In the same manner, a car dealer and their customers face uncertainty in pricing an automobile coming off a lease, because neither party knows if a lessee abused a particular vehicle.
Another problem exists in the monitoring of those individuals on probation for violations resulting from the misuse of a vehicle. Violations such as repeated speeding violations or driving while under the influence of drugs or alcohol may cause a person to be issued a restricted license. Courts may issue these individuals an occupational license limiting when they may drive. Currently, these limitations cannot be closely enforced and cannot address the manner in which the violator operates the vehicle.
In an attempt to curb these issues and abuses, certain employers are increasingly using “1-800- . . . ‘How's my driving?’” bumper stickers on their vehicles in hope that other drivers will voluntarily call the employer and report vehicle misuse. While this appears to be somewhat effective for larger companies able to set up a toll-free telephone number, this practice has limitations including reliance on volunteer callers and a willingness to publicly display the telephone number on the bumper sticker.
The widespread use of the Internet has lead to a computer-based approach for addressing these issues. At least one company has set up a business in which a parents pay an annual fee for “1-800- . . . ‘How's my driving?’” bumper stickers wherein the toll-free 800 number is shared by all subscribers and the company provides feedback to the parents in response to driving-complaint calls. More recent approaches have included use of cameras in consumer and police cars for image-recording environments in which the automobiles are traveling. These approaches, however, have various drawbacks, and some insurance company and safe-driving advocates remain unconvinced that these call-in monitoring programs are effective in reducing incidents of unsafe driving.
In certain driver-monitoring approaches, recordation of certain driving conditions occurs to determine the conditions of the vehicle(s) at the time of an accident or traffic violation. This type of approach can be very desirable from the perspective of insurance companies and government enforcement and regulatory agencies since the recorded information can be used to determine liability and fault at the time of the accident or traffic violation. For many car owners, however, this type of approach can be used against their interest because this recorded information can be used to determine liability and fault of the car owner. While discarding the recorded information would seem to be a common sense solution to this concern, once the accident or violation occurs, certain laws might interpret the destruction of such information to unlawful.
There continues to be need for improving monitoring techniques in ways that overcome the above-mentioned deficiencies and that can make roadways safer, lessen abuses on vehicles and accurately record vehicle operation during certain intervals or occurrences.